BFI and Peterborough Council: MAXIMISING EDUCATIONAL “REACH”
"Literacy is not just about the written word." This announcement by a Peterborough City councillor in December 2006 signalled his city's long-term commitment to including film study as an integral part of literacy in its primary and secondary schools.
As a direct result of BFI training provided to the city's team of literacy consultants, Peterborough's READ.WRITE.INSPIRE literacy campaign was expanded to include critical and creative work with film, using the BFI "shorts" resources for primary schools. To give this work higher profile with the city council, the literacy team set up a Peterborough Film Awards event for films made by primary school children, which was instrumental in getting the city short-listed in the Innovation category of the 2007 National Awards for Local Government.
Peterborough exemplifies exactly the kind of "multiplier effect" that BFI Education had sought in offering advanced training in film education techniques to literacy consultants in local authorities across England. 51 local authorities have so far taken up the offer and committed over £800,000 between them on two- and three-year action plans for moving image media literacy in thousands of schools.
The 150 consultants who attended one of the BFI's seven three-day residentials through 2005-06 are now developing these action plans at local level, training other teachers, creating film-based schemes of work, and evaluating pupil achievement. They report not only significant increases in literacy attainment, but huge enthusiasm and excitement about non-mainstream film, on the part of both pupils and teachers. Liverpool for example now plans a large-scale training scheme for 60 Advanced Skills Teachers in a range of subject areas to build film into their teaching, ready to showcase their work during the city's year as European City of Culture, 2008.
Strategic interventions of this type represent highly cost-effective investment of public funds, leveraging substantial further investment by other agencies, long-term sustainability, and very large numbers of end-users.
